Fertility Status as a Marker for Overall Health
The purpose of this funding opportunity (FOA) is to support research that explores the premise that fertility status can be a marker for overall health. Chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity can impair fertility; however, less is known about the extent to which fertility status can impact or act as a marker for overall health. Data suggest that infertility is not necessarily a unique disease of the reproductive axis but is often physiologically or genetically linked with other diseases and conditions. Recent epidemiologic studies demonstrate links between fertility status in both males and females and various somatic diseases and disorders. Taken together, these data strongly suggest that fertility status can be a window into overall health. Advancing this premise will require substantive involvement of experts in reproductive health/fertility along with expert in another non-reproductive specialty appropriate to the area of overall health being investigated, for example, in other fields such as epidemiology, or the somatic disease in question. This FOA focuses on studies evaluating fertility as a marker for overall health, and therefore applications that look at the effects of the disease or disorder on fertility are outside of the scope of this program. Recruitment of new cohorts will not be supported by this FOA.